How to scale a business in the solar sector without creating operational chaos? Lemon's CEO explains.

Lemon Energy, marketplace The solar energy subscription company is set to begin serving residential customers next month. This move marks a new phase of business expansion and prepares the company to operate in the free energy market as well.

The information was revealed by the company's CEO, Rafael Vignoli, in an interview with... Canal Solar. "The product is ready. This month, we are conducting tests, and the official launch should take place in approximately one month," he stated.

The main challenge was preparing the company to handle a much larger volume of consumers without overwhelming operations or harming the customer experience.

Currently, the startup serves 40 small and medium-sized businesses and projects to end the year with more than 100 clients by the end of 2026 and triple its portfolio in 2027. With the expansion into the residential segment, however, the scale could reach millions.

“The main challenge was developing a suitable product. It’s one thing to operate with 100 clients who spend around R$2 per month. It’s quite another to manage hundreds of thousands or even millions of consumers, with an average ticket price between R$300 and R$400,” said Vignoli.

“We are talking about a much larger scale and volume. If the company is not prepared, the operation can turn into chaos. To operate in this market with quality, the product and technology need to be sufficiently mature. It is necessary to grow without compromising operations and preserving the consumer experience. Today, we already have this structure and we are confident in the launch,” he added.

Lemon connects distributed solar power generators with consumers interested in reducing their electricity costs. In this model, the company manages, together with the distributors, the energy credits generated by the plants.

These credits are used to offer discounts of between 10% and 21% on the electricity bills of consumers registered on the platform. In its six years of operation, the company has already achieved accumulated savings of over R$ 73 million.

“We managed to deliver to the consumer what we promised and, when we compare our indicators with those of the market, we are in a much better situation. In some portfolios that we evaluated, we found delinquency rates between 20% and 25%. At Lemon, this indicator is below 3%, while churn is less than 1%,” he stated.

According to Vignoli, these results have led generators to seek out the company to reduce default rates and customer churn, improving the return on capital invested in the plants.

Currently, Lemon has more than 250 plants connected to the platform, totaling a capacity of over 300 MW. The company has a presence in ten states, including Goiás, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Pernambuco, Minas Gerais, and Ceará, as well as the Federal District.

To reach the residential audience, one of the strategies will be the Member Get Member model, through which consumers themselves refer new clients. The company also plans digital marketing and advertising campaigns in mass media.

“We are conducting some pilot programs with Grupo Globo, through EPTV, which owns television and radio stations. We are carrying out tests before moving forward with a more widespread strategy,” the executive explained.

Inorganic deals

Lemon has also grown through a strategy that involves taking over the management of client portfolios of generators facing operational difficulties.

Among the main challenges for these agents are obtaining consumer data, billing clients, and monitoring the allocation of energy credits generated by power plants.

Given this scenario, various companies began to seek out Lemon not only to attract new customers, but also to improve the performance of the portfolios linked to their ventures.

In these operations, the partner transfers customers to Lemon, which takes over customer service and all management of energy credits. The company classifies these operations as inorganic deals. "We have already carried out approximately five operations. By the end of the year, we should make between five and ten new deals," said Vignoli.

Acquisitions are on the radar.

In addition to inorganic deals, Lemon is negotiating its first acquisition of a client portfolio. In this type of operation, the agent typically intends to exit the distributed generation market.

In these deals, the partner remains in the sector and has an interest in making the transition as positive as possible, with minimal friction for the consumer. This is because they remain tied to the portfolio's performance.

In the case of an acquisition, the portfolio may present a higher level of operational stress, since the owner is leaving the market. "Therefore, the operation requires more thorough due diligence so that we can assess clients and pay a fair price," explained Vignoli.

Entry into the free market

Another step planned by Lemon is to enter the free market to serve low-voltage consumers. The company understands that the audience in this segment has similar characteristics to the customers currently served in distributed generation.

For the sake of speed, the strategy will be to establish a partnership with a trading company that already has a consolidated operation and experience in the free energy market.

“Distributed generation is a product with little friction and low risk for the consumer. The free market, at least initially, will have more friction, require a transition, and may involve a bit more risk,” the executive assessed.

"Lemon's challenge will be to do something similar in the free market to what we built in distributed generation: introduce the product to the small consumer and contribute to the development of this market," he added.

"AI native" company

According to Vignoli, Lemon is also undergoing a transformation process to become an "AI native" company, meaning that artificial intelligence is incorporated into its strategy and internal processes.

The company is reviewing its operations to identify which areas can utilize AI agents and how the technology can enhance the team's capabilities. According to the executive, technological projects that historically took six months to develop can now be completed in approximately two weeks.

“The speed at which we have been able to build and improve the platform through artificial intelligence is impressive. This gives us more capacity to aggressively advance into new areas, such as the residential segment and the free market,” he concluded.

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